I’m going to be a dad this summer. How cool that is depends on who you talk to. Among my male friends, I am one of the last to procreate, so my news has been greeted with a curious mix of congratulations, mockery and, most usefully, baby-tech shopping advice.

I’m not normally the sort of bloke who takes advice when it comes to tech. I can sniff out a far-too-expensive guitar pedalboard that I really need, at 50 paces. As a film reviewer, I spend an extraordinary amount of time glued to a screen, and I never met a Star Wars gadget I didn’t like.

But now, I find myself stumped. I mean, what does a child really need? As a species, we’ve been rearing…

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